


Those Three Little Words (the Everything I Lack In Style's Made Up With How I Feel remix)

by geckoholic



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>One of the things you learn when you’re friends with Jessica Jones is the ability to read between the lines.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Three Little Words (the Everything I Lack In Style's Made Up With How I Feel remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Those Three Little Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291339) by [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/pseuds/Sumi). 



> Beta-read by counteragent. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Undivided" by Thirteen Senses.

One of the things you learn when you’re friends with Jessica Jones is the ability to read between the lines. In fact, that's probably the only way to _stay_ friends with Jess. But that doesn't make the lack of clear verbal communication – the lack of getting to _hear_ what she's trying to tell you – any easier sometimes. 

The first time Trish tells her she loves her they're both seventeen years old. It's innocent then; Jess is her only ally, the person who stands by her without demanding payment for her loyalty one way or another, and Trish blurts it out one afternoon after Jess has faced up her mother for the umpteenth time and fought yet another battle that wasn't hers, that she didn't have to take on. They bailed out of the house, running to an ice cream parlor on the outskirts of the city, and there she is, sitting over her cherry sundae, and the words tumble off her tongue. 

“I love you,” she says. “You know that, right?”

Jess averts her eyes, looks out of the window and shrugs. “I guess,” she mumbles. 

The moment stretches into awkwardness, until Trish takes one of the cocktail cherries that decorate the rim of the glass and launches it at Jess's face. She misses, the fruit landing on the table with a small splash, but Jess shrieks and glares, and they're back on familiar ground. 

 

***

 

After she said it once, she probably uses the _I love you_ a little inflationary. She figures Jess needs to hear it; she definitely needs to say it, to someone who's deserving of both the emotion and its acknowledgment. There's something else in the meaning these words carry, but Trish won't get around to analyzing that for a while to come. 

In the process of getting from under her mother's thumb, Trish lands ends up in the hospital. It's an overdose, stupid really, and of course it's Jess who's holding vigil by her bedside when Trish blinks awake. And yet, she wasn't able to look at her; to confront what happened. To make it real. 

“You know, I can be pretty stubborn,” Jess mutters. “I’m not leaving here until you at least fucking look at me, Trish.”

What Trish heard, between the lines, was the clearest _I love you_ she'd gotten from Jess in a while. She still didn't look at her for another two days, not unless she could be sure Jess had fallen asleep in the chair she'd only moved out of to pee or organize them both something to eat or drink. They're both stubborn. It doesn't make their relationship any easier, but it does make the victories, when they happen, so much sweeter. 

 

*** 

 

There are many times where the words go unsaid between them in the years that follow. They're shown often enough; with a glance and a gesture, with being there for each other through thick and thin, with the unwavering support they both offer each other. Trish is the person who embraces Jess’s otherness without a blink, encourages it even; the suit idea gets discarded, but she knew that when she suggested it and a piece of fabric wasn’t the point. When people tease and ridicule Trish for her popular past, Jess is always there to shield her, bite them away; a little too aggressively, maybe, sometimes, but there are days when Trish doesn’t even mind Jess spitting in the face of everyone who dares to make fun of her. 

Jess is the person who loves Trish for the person behind the persona, and Trish is the one who loves Jess no matter how unlovable she tries to make herself. Words couldn't capture what that feels like, anyway. 

 

***

 

That Jess pulls back after Kilgrave is probably an _I love you_ in itself. Protecting Trish, like she always has. What pisses Trish off, however, and makes it so hard to sit this out, is that she doesn't get a vote. She's not a child anymore, cowering under her mother's rigor hand. She's an adult, and she can make her own choices. 

She will always choose to stand by Jess's side, no matter how difficult or dangerous it might be. But Jess keeps pushing her away, and it's tiring, it's exhausting, and at some point it becomes easier to just _let her_. 

But that doesn't mean Trish will abandon her. They'll find their way back to each other. They always do. And Trish will be ready for it when that happens. 

 

*** 

 

There's a strange irony to the way Jess ends up uttering the words at her for the first time, at the pier, when Trish thought her already gone. It's not entirely voluntarily. It's a signal. It's so much more. 

“I love you,” she says, and Trish recognizes it's for her as much as it is a previously agreed upon code. It's _you mean the world to me_ and it's _I would do anything to save you from harm_ as much as it's confirmation that Kilgrave doesn't have control over her anymore. And Trish gets it. She understands. She _knows_ , even before Jess repeats the words once she's out of prison, confirms and repeats them. 

Reading between the lines. It's a useful skill. 

 

***

 

It takes some time for the dust to settle. For Jess to heal and normalcy to set back in – whatever _normal_ actually means for them. And Trish can wait. She's been waiting for so long. 

The day it finally happens is nothing special. Trish has just gotten home from work, stuck between cooking something semi-healthy and just giving up and ordering pizza when her door bell rings. The camera of her alarm system shows her a solemn looking Jess, and Trish is immediately concerned. Heart in her throat, she buzzes her in. 

Jess flops down on the couch, hands in her lap, and looks up at Trish like she's seeing her for the first time, and doesn't know what to do with the sight. Trish sees her throat working as she swallows, hard, then takes a deep breath. 

“I love you,” she says and there's a world of meaning behind the actual words; there always is, with Jess. 

Trish sits down next to her, arm over the backrest, touching Jess's neck. “I know. You don't have to – “

“No,” Jess says, shaking her head, forehead scrunched up. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “No. I mean. _I love you_.” 

And suddenly the serious expression makes sense. This must be hard for Jess; it's one thing she managed to make herself vulnerable enough that she admitted a life-long friendship means something to her, but this, this is another thing altogether. But it's not new. Not to Jess, and certainly not to Trish. It's just another layer to what they are to each other. And even though Trish hadn't actively thought about it for a while, not since the pier, she doesn't need more than a second to reply. 

She inches a little closer – close enough that they touch, that she can feel Jess’s body heat through her jeans – and takes Jess’s hand from where it lay on her own thigh. After initial resistance, Jess lets her, and Trish laces their fingers together; filling the space between the lines. 

“I love you, too,” she says, voice strong and sure. And she means it, in every sense of the word.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com).


End file.
